Pamela Nadell's biographical dictionary and sourcebook is a landmark contribution to American, Jewish, and religious history. For the first time, a great American Jewish religious movement is portrayed with amplitude, authority, and personality. In the most revolutionary era in two millenia of Jewish history, this surely is an important volumn. Moses Rischin, Professor of History, San Francisco State University Conservative Judaism in America: A Biographical Dictionary and Sourcebook is the first extensive effort to document the lives and careers of the most important leaders in Conservatism's first century and to provide a brief history of the movement and its central institutions. It includes essays on the history of the movement and on the evolution of its major institutions: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Rabbinical Assembly, and The United Synagogue of America. It also contains 135 biographical entries on the leading figures of Conservative Judaism, appendices, and a complete bibliography on sources of study.

Solomon Schechter (1847-1915), the charismatic leader of New York's Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), came to America in 1902 intent on revitalizing traditional Judaism. While he advocated a return to traditional practices, Schechter articulated no clear position on divisive issues, instead preferring to focus on similarities that could unite American Jewry under a broad message. Michael R. Cohen demonstrates how Schechter, unable to implement his vision on his own, turned to his disciples, rabbinical students and alumni of JTS, to shape his movement. By midcentury, Conservative Judaism had become the largest American Jewish grouping in the United States, guided by Schechter's disciples and their continuing efforts to embrace diversity while eschewing divisive debates. Yet Conservative Judaism's fluid boundaries also proved problematic for the movement, frustrating many rabbis who wanted a single platform to define their beliefs. Cohen demonstrates how a legacy of tension between diversity and boundaries now lies at the heart of Conservative Judaism's modern struggle for relevance. His analysis explicates four key claims: that Conservative Judaism's clergy, not its laity or Seminary, created and shaped the movement; that diversity was--and still is--a crucial component of the success and failure of new American religions; that the Conservative movement's contemporary struggle for self-definition is tied to its origins; and that the porous boundaries between Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism reflect the complexity of the American Jewish landscape--a fact that Schechter and his disciples keenly understood. Rectifying misconceptions in previous accounts of Conservative Judaism's emergence, Cohen's study enables a fresh encounter with a unique religious phenomenon.

As one of the world's most ancient religions, Judaism serves as a foundation for the belief systems of two other major faiths : Christianity and Islam.

Bringing together contributions from established scholars as well as promising younger academics, the seventeenth volume of this established series offers a broad-ranging view of why Judaism, a religion whose observance is more honored in the breach in most western Jewish communities, has garnered attention, authority, and controversy in the late twentieth century. The volume considers the ways in which theological writings, sweeping social change, individual or small-group needs, and intra-communal diversity have re-energized Judaism even amidst secular trends in America and Israel.

This Companion explores the history, doctrines, divisions, and contemporary condition of Judaism. Surveys those issues most relevant to Judaic life today: ethics, feminism, politics, and constructive theology Explores the definition of Judaism and its formative history Makes sense of the diverse data of an ancient and enduring faith

The rise of Jewish feminism, a branch of both second-wave feminism and the American counterculture, in the late 1960s had an extraordinary impact on the leadership, practice, and beliefs of American Jews. Women Remaking American Judaism is the first book to fully examine the changes in American Judaism as women fought to practice their religion fully and to ensure that its rituals, texts, and liturgies reflected their lives. In addition to identifying the changes that took place, this volume aims to understand the process of change in ritual, theology, and clergy across the denominations. The essays in Women Remaking American Judaism offer a paradoxical understanding of Jewish feminism as both radical, in the transformational sense, and accomodationist, in the sense that it was thoroughly compatible with liberal Judaism. Essays in the first section, Reenvisioning Judaism, investigate the feminist challenges to traditional understanding of Jewish law, texts, and theology. In Redefining Judaism, the second section, contributors recognize that the changes in American Judaism were ultimately put into place by each denomination, their law committees, seminaries, rabbinic courts, rabbis, and synagogues, and examine the distinct evolution of women’s issues in the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements. Finally, in the third section, Re-Framing Judaism, essays address feminist innovations that, in some cases, took place outside of the synagogue. An introduction by Riv-Ellen Prell situates the essays in both American and modern Jewish history and offers an analysis of why Jewish feminism was revolutionary. Women Remaking American Judaism raises provocative questions about the changes to Judaism following the feminist movement, at every turn asking what change means in Judaism and other American religions and how the fight for equality between men and women parallels and differs from other changes in Judaism. Women Remaking American Judaism will be of interest to both scholars of Jewish history and women’s studies.

This collection of articles offers a broad ranging view of why Judaism has recently garnered so much attention, intellectual interest, and controversy.

A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, multi-authored guide to contemporary Jewish life and thought, focusing on social, cultural and historical aspects of Judaism alongside theological issues. This volume includes 38 newly-commissioned essays, including contributions from leading specialists in their fields. This book covers the major areas of thought in contemporary Jewish Studies, including considerations of religious differences, sociological, philosophical, and gender issues, geographical diversity, inter-faith relations, and the impact of the Shoah (the Holocaust) and the modern state of Israel.

An illustrated A to Z reference containing over 800 entries providing information on the theology, people, historical events, institutions and movements related to the religion of Judaism.